Hi guys,
Below are the personal tips from Sujata who scored overall band 8.5 in the IELTS test.
People taking the academic IELTS test can still benefit from these tips. The listening and speaking test is the same for all candidates.
Sujata’s IELTS Results
- Listening = 9
- Reading = 9
- Writing = 7.5
- Speaking = 7.5
My Personal Tips for IELTS Band 8.5
LISTENING
I practised a lot of tests for almost 3 months and that was very helpful. I could understand the pattern of questions clearly and knew what to expect on the test day.- Underlining the key points in the questions really helps to predict the answer before even hearing the recording.- While doing practice tests, one should mark oneself strictly to get an idea about one’s actual score rather than ignoring small mistakes and becoming falsely optimistic about their scores.- Practice tests should be timed like the IELTS in order to get real scores and also to prevent anxiety during the actual test.
READING
I practised a lot of reading tests as well but I restricted myself to doing General tests only because I was going to take GT test.- I frequently used the dictionary and thesaurus to look up the words that I didn’t understand while doing the passage, even if there was no question related to the word. It immediately improved my vocabulary and it undoubtedly helped me in achieving the perfect score.- Timing oneself is equally important in this section as well.
WRITING
Though I did not get a perfect score in this part, I was able to achieve a decent score because I practised writing letters and essays from your website and that too while timing myself. While writing the exam I felt that time was the limiting factor as opposed to lack of ideas and paraphrasing, as many students say. If I had more than an hour, I could have written a better letter and essay on the same topic. So for me, the most challenging part about writing was the time limit. – I did not go through a lot of sample letters and essays as I felt that they limited my ideas, which would be counter-intuitive in the long run. However, I went through one type of sample letter and essay for each question type on your website to get a general idea but that was all.- I can’t stress enough how important paragraphing is while writing task 1 and 2. Liz’s website provides clear information in that regard and one should follow the instructions to the t.
SPEAKING
For me, the speaking part was fun and I remember walking out of the exam like I had just had an informal discussion with a new friend. I hesitated a bit while speaking in the second part which was probably why I did not get a better score.- I had practiced recording some of my answers to time myself and realized that I was giving too long answers to most questions. So I would suggest that one should record themselves to evaluate one’s answers and also the check for grammatical mistakes.
“I came to ieltsliz.com in the first place because it came first when I searched for IELTS exam preparation on google. I must confess that although I had referred to other websites for tips on cracking the IELTS exam, yours was the one I kept coming back to. I think the reason is that you provide a purely informative interface as opposed to other sites which give a lot of irrelevant information as well. Also, the information in your website is clearly demarcated and easy to follow. A person who wishes to learn about the intricacies of the listening part only can go straight to the listening page without being distracted by tips about the other parts of the exam. “
Hope these tips help other aspirants.
Message to Sujata: Very well done with your results!! And thank you for sharing your tips and experience with everyone. I’m sure it will inspire many people 🙂
